It’s easy to think that Christmas is the most important day of the Christian year. However, the manger only makes sense because of the cross of Good Friday and the empty tomb of Easter Sunday.
The resurrection of Jesus was an unprecedented and literal act of God which attests to God’s existence and continued involvement in the world, and God’s ultimate victory over death and evil. It also set into motion the remaking of this world.
If you go through the Gospels and read their various accounts of the first Easter morning, you’ll notice they are immediately followed by stories about the Risen Lord Jesus sending out, or commissioning, his disciples to be his continued presence and work in the world. This is because Jesus’ resurrection was the catalyst for a new stage in the mission of God.
As the New Testament scholar, N T Wright, puts it, “Christ is risen, God’s new creation has begun, therefore, let’s get to work!”. As followers of Jesus and as witnesses to his resurrected life, it is our joy and mission to help form and shape the world according to the pattern of God’s kingdom – to move out into a violent world as agents of peace, into a broken world as agents of reconciliation, into a needy world as servants of the poor, and into an unbelieving world as glimpses of the divine.
And perhaps, then, the world will have no more reason to doubt that God is real, that there is more to life and death than what meets the eye, and that our faith is not in vain for Christ is truly risen.
The Most Reverend Kay Goldsworthy AO
Archbishop of Perth and Metropolitan of the Province of Western Australia
